This article provides and reflects on an original lesson plan for engaging high school, undergraduate, or graduate students in learning fundamental concepts of environmental ethics. Implementation of this lesson plan effectively promoted critical analysis, reflection, and communication of environmental ethics issues in a seminar for second-year undergraduate students focused on theoretical frameworks and research methods in the field of sustainability. After reading background information about environmental ethics, students worked in small groups to answer questions about ethical issues related to the Dakota Access Pipeline in the midwestern United States. To further apply knowledge about ethics, students independently investigated a second environmental issue of their choosing, using news reports and scholarly publications to identify key ethical questions and interested parties affected by them, then wrote a position paper about how well principles of environmental ethics were upheld in their chosen scenario and how the application of ethics could be improved. In their work, students demonstrated adequate to exceptional ability to communicate knowledge of and apply relevant ethical principles, although the scope and depth of knowledge demonstrated varied.